


Within the Mirror

by brokenmimir



Series: White Rose Week 2020 [1]
Category: RWBY
Genre: F/F, White Rose Week 2020 (RWBY)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-10
Updated: 2020-06-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:54:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24646000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brokenmimir/pseuds/brokenmimir
Summary: White Rose Week 2020, Day 1: MirrorWeiss is having the worst day of her life, when she hears a friendly voice coming from her bathroom mirror.
Relationships: Ruby Rose/Weiss Schnee
Series: White Rose Week 2020 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1781932
Comments: 23
Kudos: 110
Collections: Real Good Shit





	Within the Mirror

“Weiss!” Jacques Schnee shouted. “Weiss! Where are you!”

Weiss Schnee hid in her large bathtub, one hand pressing hard against her eye. Her father had always been angry, but after her older sister turned eighteen and joined the military, he had become far worse than angry. She had swiftly transitioned from 'spoiled younger daughter' to 'new heir', and everything she did was a failure, now.

Today, her failure had been punished with backhanded blow to her face, her father's ring tearing a jagged, bleeding wound from cheek to forehead, right over her thankfully closed eyelid. It was all she could do to keep silent as the blood stained her white dress, her hand clutching the throbbing wound while she begged anyone listening for her father not to find her.

“Please, please, I just want to hide,” she whimpered under her breath. “Please, please don't let him find me.”

“Hello?” a small, high voice called.

Weiss froze, unmoving, terrified that the voice would bring her father. Who was it? They sounded even younger than her own barely a teen self, but other than her brother there shouldn't have been anyone like that in the manor. Was it the child of a servant? Her father didn't allow her to interact with commoners, which had prevented her from ever making friends.

“Hello?” the voice called again, a little louder this time. “I thought I heard someone?”

Slowly Weiss sat up, peering over the edge of the tub. The door was still closed, the lights still out, the room empty save for herself. The voice had sounded so close, but there wasn't anyone in the room with her.

“Hey!” the voice said. “There you are! Oh no, what happened to you?”

Weiss scrunched down lower for a moment, before finally daring to peek above the rim of the tub again. This time she saw the source of the voice, even though it was simply impossible.

The back of her bathroom door had a large, antique mirror, which had been in her family for generations. Normally she should've been able to dimly make out the reflection of the darkened bathroom, with her own bleeding, bedraggled form peering just over the rim of the tub. Instead, she saw a dark, misty forest, with a girl a little younger than herself looking at her with concern.

The girl was wearing a short black dress with black tights, and tall, black boots. Over this was a large red, hooded cloak, which made her cut an almost intimidating figure despite being so young and small. Her face was still chubby with youth, and her silver eyes were bright and cheerful, although they still held a look of concern.

“What happened to you?” she repeated.

“Wh-who are you?” Weiss countered. “How did you get in my mirror?"

“I'm Ruby, Ruby Rose!” the girl said brightly. “What's your name?”

Weiss sat up primly, despite one hand still desperately clamped over her injured eye. “I am Weiss Schnee.”

“Nice to meet you, Weiss!” Ruby said, grinning and bouncing in place.

Weiss frowned. “You didn't tell me how you're in my mirror.”

“Oh… right,” Ruby chuckled sheepishly, pushing her hood back to scratch the back of her head, revealing short, raggedly cut black and red hair. “Um… I dunno. I found the Mirror World years ago, and I guess you just found a way here, too.”

“Mirror World?”

“Yeah, it's a really cool place! There's all kinds of fun adventures, and neat people, and monsters to beat up and everything! And I can eat as many cookies as I want, and nobody can tell me what to do. It's the bestest place ever!”

“R-really?” Weiss asked.

“Yeah,” Ruby said, nodding. “Hey, why don't you come with me? I know where we can get a plant that'll heal you right up!”

Weiss bit her lip. Ruby seemed nice, but she was kind of a lot. Fighting monsters? Adventures? That all sounded scary, and she knew she wasn't supposed to run off with strangers. Plus, how could she go into a mirror? It sounded more likely that she'd gotten brain damage from being hit than that there really was a portal to some kind of magical world inside of her bathroom mirror.

“Weiss!” her father shouted, making her flinch in terror. He was _close_. “If you don't come out right now… I assure you you will not like the consequences, young lady!”

That settled it. As much as she was afraid of going with Ruby, she was more afraid of staying with her father. Gathering up what courage she could find, she stumbled out of the bathtub and rushed over to the mirror. Ruby stepped back with a grin, and after taking one more deep, steadying breath, Weiss stepped from her world.

It was like stepping through water, a cool, giving membrane that she passed through quickly, but on the other side it was comfortable, a little cool and foggy, but no colder than her father kept the manor. The air was fresh and crisp, full of the smell of growing things and new opportunities.

“Come on, let's get you something for your eye!” Ruby said brightly, grabbing Weiss's free hand.

She flinched for a moment, the sudden movement after what had happened spooking her, but Ruby's hand was warm and gentle in her own, firm but soft as she was pulled away from her bathroom. She only had time to look back briefly, enough to see a mirror identical to the one hanging in her bathroom suspended in the boughs of a great pine tree and rapidly fogging over like a too hot shower had been taken, before she was pulled away.

“Don't jerk my arm so hard,” Weiss grumbled.

“Sorry,” Ruby said insincerely. “I just want to get your eye fixed! It looks like it really hurts.”

“It doesn't hurt that much,” Weiss said stoically, puffing her chest out.

“Oh good!” Ruby said brightly. “I was scared you'd lose an eye or something. I mean, an eyepatch would be cool an' all, but I don't think you'd look as good as a pirate. I mean, you look like a princess! And princesses don't usually lose an eye, right?”

Ruby continued chattering away as she lead Weiss through the forest, following a seemingly random path through the trees. After a while Weiss began to hear a distant rushing sound, and soon enough the forest opened up into a beautiful meadow with a swiftly flowing river cutting through the center of it.

“Be careful!” Ruby warned. “Its spring, so the snow's melting up in the mountains, so the water's real cold and fast! Real, real cold! My sister Yang fell in once, and she got so cold I thought she'd never get warm again. We had to find the Good Witch to heal her up, and that was a whole big thing.”

“You have a sister?” Weiss asked.

“Yeah, Yang, she's the best,” Ruby said. “Now, why don't you clean your face off, and I'll get the herbs to heal you! And remember, be careful. The water's really cold, and sometimes you just get dragged in if you aren't careful!”

Weiss bit her lip, but when Ruby skipped off to gather some plants growing further down the river, she delicately sat down and washed her hands in the water. It was just as cold as Ruby had promised, her fingers swiftly turning red and burning with the chill, but she ignored it with all the grace of someone Atleasian born and bred, getting as much of the dried blood off of her hands as possible before wiping at her face.

She had just begun making headway when Ruby shouted, “look out!”

Weiss pulled back, before gaping in shock at what she saw in front of her. Just beneath the water was a hideous woman, with a long, warty nose, wrinkled, leathery green skin, solid black eyes, and long, seaweed-like hair. Her figure appeared distorted, with short, bandy legs, and long, sinewy arms ending in cruel, grasping fingers. Upon being noticed the figure gave up on stealth and simply lunged, long green fingers seeking to grab onto Weiss, and in that moment she knew that the creature wanted to pull her into the river.

And then Ruby was there. Before Weiss could do more than awkwardly sprawl onto her back the other girl had pulled a huge red scythe from nowhere and brought it down between them, embedding the large blade right between Weiss's ankles, inches from the foot long, spindly fingers about to grab onto them. There was a long, long moment where everything save the rushing water was still, and then the creature returned under the water.

“I'm so sorry,” Ruby shouted, the scythe breaking down into a smoky vapor before floating away. “I didn't think Nelly Longarms would be this far into the forest! She usually waits way downstream from here.”

“Wh-what was that!?!”

Ruby smiled sheepishly, before helping Weiss move back from the water's edge, sitting her on a smooth stone. She then began to crush the leaves she'd gathered against the rock with the flat of a knife, creating a sticky green paste that smelled like peppermints. “That was Nelly Longarms. She's a water hag.”

“Water hag?”

“Mmhmm,” Ruby hummed, gathering some of the sticky goo and carefully smearing it on Weiss's injury. She flinched from the pain, but soon relaxed as that faded, leaving a comforting warmth behind. “Hags like to grab stuff that gets too close to the water. One time Peg Powler almost got Yang under, but then she grabbed her by the hair and Yang got so mad! Peg swam away so fast, and she hasn't tried anything since.”

“There's more stuff like that here?!” Weiss shouted, looking around the clearing. What had once seemed pretty if mysterious now gained a sinister air.

“Yeah, there's all kinds of monsters and adventures and stuff here!” Ruby said brightly. “Don't worry, it's not all bad! There's also all kinds of cool stuff living here, and I've made a bunch of friends with 'em. I'll sure they'll love you!”

“There are other people here?” Weiss asked.

“A few,” Ruby said with a nod. “There's Yang, and Jaune, and Pyrrha, and Nora, and Ren, and-”

“Who are they?” Weiss asked. “Are they from here?”

“Nuh, uh,” Ruby said, shaking her head. “The only humans come from the other side. There're not humans here who're nice, too, though. Pitys is a dryad that lives pretty close; I was on my way to see her when I saw your mirror gate! And there's Ovinnik, and Blake, and-”

“What do you mean by mirror gate?” Weiss demanded, cutting off Ruby before she could ramble more.

“Oh, well… sometimes when people really, really want to be somewhere else their mirror turns into a gate to here!” Ruby said. “I don't know what was happening to you, but…”

Weiss flinched, looking away when Ruby trailed off to gesture at the cut on her face. Clearing her throat, Ruby continued in a softer tone. “Anyway, sometimes people come through, and that's where most of our friends came from! I was so lucky that my sister came with me. Jaune has like, seven sisters, but he's here by himself. Anyway, this place is great! I mean, it's kinda dangerous, and there's scary stuff too, but… that just makes it better! It's like being in the best story book ever, but its all real! And we can stay here instead of having to go back home.”

“So you just… stay here? You don't go back?”

Ruby looked solemn. “Some people go back. I know Jaune used to go back and forth a ton, but… this is our home, you know? Our _real_ home. Anyway, when he started hanging out with Pyrrha and Ren he started staying more, and I don't think he's gone back in years. Are you… are you gonna stay?”

Weiss bit her lip, looking at the friendly, if kind of scary girl, and then over at the icy cold river, where she now saw the hag peeking just out of the water, looking at the two of them hungrily. This mirror world was obviously a dangerous place, but…

Back home she was never allowed to make any friends, and after her sister left she was all alone, and now she wasn't allowed to have any fun anymore. And her father… but here, they could do anything they wanted, and… and there may have been monsters, but her _father_ wasn't here.

With a shy smile Weiss reached over and grabbed Ruby's hand. It wasn't nearly as hard of a choice as it should've been.

**Author's Note:**

> I can't believe it's already time for another White Rose Week! For this prompt I selected Mirror, and I hope that you enjoyed it.
> 
> The quarantine has really messed with my usual writing flow, so I barely wrote anything coming into this. Instead I wrote my first four prompts yesterday, which should (hopefully) give me enough breathing room to finish this week's prompts.


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